I swore I wouldn’t write a single thing about Christmas until Dec. 1, but there is already
rampant fa-la-la-la-la-ing from radio stations and department stores. Perhaps a little historical
context will deepen your enjoyment when you hear
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas for the 131st time.

The book, by Ronald D. Lankford Jr., is too academic to be wildly entertaining.

And he contends, without elaboration, that no one knows who wrote
Up on the Housetop. Countless sources credit it to Benjamin Hanby, whose house in
Westerville is a museum and a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

But Lankford did inform me about a few things I can ponder while
Winter Wonderland is playing from the speakers at Walmart:

• It was probably a coincidence, but
The Christmas Song with its famous chestnuts was written by Mel Torme and Bob Wells about
the time that a blight had killed most of the trees that produced them.

The book quotes from a magazine article that noted, “By 1946, at the peak of the song’s
popularity, it would have been hard to find any chestnuts to roast.”

• The somewhat-melancholic
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas was almost absurdly depressing in the original
version. Consider the original opening:
Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last. Sheesh.

A 2007
Entertainment Weekly article said Judy Garland, when told she had to sing the song to
7-year-old Margaret O’Brien in
Meet Me in St. Louis, objected that she couldn’t subject the poor kid to that much
sadness.

The writer, Hugh Martin, made it lighter, although he kept the line “Until then, we’ll have to
muddle through somehow.” Even that was too dark for Frank Sinatra, who substituted “Hang a shining
star upon the highest bough” in a 1957 recording.

•
Baby, It’s Cold Outside never mentions Christmas and, in fact, was first performed in
Neptune’s Daughter, an Esther Williams comedy released in the summer of 1949.

• Straying from Bing Crosby’s staid version of
White Christmas was once a risky act. Composer Irving Berlin was so dismayed by Elvis
Presley’s rock recording in 1957 that he urged radio stations not to play it. At least one disc
jockey was fired for doing so anyway.

I think it’s safe to say you’ll be hearing more than enough of both versions in the next few
weeks — and no one will get fired for it.